Kale chips and salad with beets

The other night we made kale chips and beet green chips as an appetizer while we prepared a big salad.  To make the chips, tear pieces of kale and beet greens (or any type of green) into medium size pieces.  Don't make them too small, because they will shrink as they cook, and you want good-sized pieces to eat.  Toss the pieces in olive oil, salt & pepper, and any other seasoning you might like - we added a dash of cayenne pepper.  Put the greens on a baking sheet in a single layer and bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes, until they get nice and crispy.  Thicker greens will take a little longer.  Turn the greens over a few times during baking so they cook evenly.  This pic only shows kale chips, and it's kind of hard to see, but you can get the idea:

Next we made a big salad with lots of stuff in it.  I don't normally blog salads, but this one was a little different so I thought I'd share.  It was almost entirely made up of CSA veggies!  For greens we used red and green leaf lettuce and spinach.  Then we added chopped radishes, salad turnips, broccoli, raisins, walnuts, and warm cooked beets, then topped it off with fresh grated parmesan.  The dressing is a simple olive oil and red wine vinegar.

It was delish!  We made a bunch and ate it leftover for lunch the next day (store the leftovers without dressing) and it was still just as good.

We eat lots of salad, and it's a great way to use CSA veggies, and to fill up while staying healthy.  The trick to keep salad from getting boring is to mix up the toppings.  Adding beets to this salad made it a very different meal.  You can change it up a lot by adding fruits (oranges, cranberries, strawberries), nuts (almonds, walnuts, pine nuts), and of course different veggies.